Historical Background
Certainly, Acapulco was the second most important port of the Viceroyalty of Mexico as a strategic area and played a dual role as the port of final destination of the transpacific trade in America, with direct service to the Philippines. The galleon that departed to the east was nexus of all kinds of communications between New Spain-Europe-Asia. In 1573 Acapulco was finally granted as the sole site in the Viceroyalty authorized to deal in Asia. Ultimately, it is well known that vessels from the Philippines carried a group of goods that were in great demand in America.
Modern Times
By the mid-40's the first commercial wharf and warehouses were built thus laying the groundwork for development of the port and then in the 70's there was a significant expansion of it. From then until 1996, before the creation of API Acapulco, the port has seen its docks and warehouses used for various kinds of goods and vessels. This was the era of consolidation of the harbor and played a major role in the economic development of the area and central region of the country in terms of foreign trade with the Pacific basin is concerned. This trend sharply defined exports from the late 90's to today, marking the movement of cargo at the port of Acapulco and now has become the leader in volume of vehicles exported through the Pacific.

In June of 1994, in the frame work of the program of creation of the Integral Port Administrations (API) as part of a modernization strategy that would provide a more efficient administration and operation, with higher levels of productivity that would further the competitiveness of the ports; the federal government, through the Ministry of Transportation, awarded the concession for Administración Portuaria Integral Acapulco, S.A. de C.V Subsequently, on June 20, 1996, the Ministry of Communications and Transport made an amendment to the Concession Agreement, mentioned above, which was the basis for a public tender for API Acapulco that was subject of a privatization process.

Since the mid-90's during in the process of creating the API's in the National Port System, vocations and priorities were defined, that the port of Acapulco oriented its port activity towards its two branches in which to the date has resulted competitive, these are the cruise industry tourism and vehicle management.